Issues with germination and slow growing plants

Question from a fellow grower!

Been growing over 50 yrs. Mostly cloning for 25. Figured I’d try these seeds. They germinate quick but only grow the tap root, very little hair roots. They grow to about 1.5 inches and stop growing. I’ve tried about 12 seeds and got 1 good plant. A auto GSC extreme. Have 3 AFIE and 4 zkittlez that finally reached 3 ft. and should be 5 or 6 by now. The rest died after about a month. PH is fine, using Miracle Grow potting soil that I’ve been using for years. Not a clue what’s going on. I am wondering about the seed size. Are feminized and auto seeds smaller than regular seeds? I’ve always thrown away seeds this small. Any ideas of what’s going on? I’m ready to go back to cloning.

1 Like

Everywhere I go smaller seeds seem to be preferred over larger. General consensus is that they germinate faster.

Aa far as life after germination, I always feel like there is a period of stall after popping. Once the cots open and start collecting energy, then the plants spend a few days trying to build a root system. After that you should start to see production of true leaves and growth start increasing. Miracle gro soil is pretty much garbage in my opinion. Makes sense you could be successful with clones though, just because they are small they are still mature plants. Which makes them a lot more tolerable to higher nutrient concentration than a seedling or immature plant.

I feel like most of th issues with seedlings is usually too much water. When media is too wet the plants are able to get everything they need from the tap root or very small root system, so the root mass doesn’t expand as fast as it would in dryer conditions. Not sure if this applies to current issues, but buyer should join and fill out support ticket with some pictures so we can take a look.

2 Likes